Vijay Ramalingam, Kandasamy Kamindan Manjai Sengodan, Ram Karthik Murugan, Rajeswari Raveendran
BACKGROUND There are many parameters that are considered to affect function and the extrusion time of the ventilation tubes (Grommets) inserted for patients with secretory otitis media (glue ear/otitis media with effusion). Our objective is to study such parameters and their significance in order to better understand the disease process. METHODS A total of 84 patients who underwent grommet insertion were retrospectively evaluated for the relationship between various parameters such as extrusion time, age, gender, adenoid size, status of tympanic membrane at the time of insertion, the nature of the fluid aspirated during procedure, pre-operative impedance audiogram and combination of adenoidectomy procedure. RESULTS The mean time of extrusion of grommet in our study was found to be 254 days. Although rest of the parameters did not have much significance in the process of extrusion, we found that history of previous ventilation tube insertion took shorter time to extrude (mean, 203 days) and serous effusion (mean, 188 days) took shorter time to extrude than mucoid effusion (mean, 271 days). CONCLUSIONS The mean time for extrusion of ventilation tube (grommet) was 254 days in our study. The characteristics of the middle ear effusion and a history of previous ventilation tube insertion had significant impact on the extrusion time. The quality of effusion can give us a clinical clue to ventilation tube extrusion time, which in turn explains about the return of middle ear function.
